


A Complete Home

by completelyhopeless



Category: DCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Comment Fic, Community: comment_fic, F/M, Fluff, Gen, could be friends could be more, two circus birds universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 00:52:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3509033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completelyhopeless/pseuds/completelyhopeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint helps Natasha decorate her first real home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Complete Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/gifts).



> For the prompt: _[any. any. decorating their new place.](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/552473.html?thread=77947417#t77947417)_
> 
> I'd marked the prompt for a fill a while back, but it seemed perfect for after Natasha got recruited and got a place of her own, and since I was trying not only to get back into circus birds but regain Clint's voice, I had to try it.
> 
> It can mostly be ignored that it's part of circus birds, though, if one skips over Nightwing's note.

* * *

“This is absurd,” Natasha said, standing back to watch Clint as he adjusted a picture on her wall. She had only shrugged when he asked her if she liked it, but he'd bought it anyway and now it was on her wall. “Why decorate a safe house?”

Clint turned, blinking in confusion as he did. “This isn't a safe house, Nat. This is _your_ house. Well, okay, it's an apartment, but it's your home now. You did say you liked the neighborhood and the view, right? I mean, I know you kept acting like I was nuts when we were looking for this place, but you _do_ like it, don't you?”

She glanced at the pale walls and the open space, the floor that could have become suitable for a dance, turned into a ballet studio—only she had never known how to dance, she just believed that she could—and back at Clint. “I... It is habitable. That is all I need.”

“There is something seriously wrong with you if you think that,” Clint told her. “Then again, I don't know that I'm much better. You should see some of the places I've lived over the years. No, you shouldn't.”

“Are you worried I would think less of you if I did?”

He smiled. “That assumes it would be possible for you to think less of me—and I don't think it is.”

She found herself smiling in return, though his words were untrue. He had a way of making her feel that his smiles should be answered with one of her own, and she found them strangely genuine, not some act she put on to get close to her target. Still, he was wrong. She did think highly of him. He was one of few that had earned her respect.

“So... where do you want these?”

She took the snowglobe from him, shaking her head. “I still do not understand why you bought me this. It is...”

“Corny. Cheesy. Tasteless?”

“Yes.”

“I told you before—every trip deserves a souvenir. The good ones, at least. The bad ones, the memory of them is more than enough,” Clint told her. He shook his head, reclaiming the globe. “Concentrate on the good memories. Where do you want this?”

She frowned before pointing to the shelf that May had given her. “There, I suppose.”

Clint put the trinkets in place and turned back to her. “This is _your_ place, you know. You should be putting it together how you want it.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “You keep expecting me to care about this, but you don't.”

His expression turned wounded. “What makes you say that?” 

“You do not decorate your own apartment. Unless what you showed me was some kind of false front—if it was not your home—then it is not surprising, but your place is not decorated. You barely have anything in your apartment, and you did not paint or decorate as you keep insisting I should.”

He shrugged. “That's not the same thing. I have as much decoration as I need.”

“You have none.”

He laughed. “Okay, I have _almost_ none. It's—you should see my best friend's place. He's just as bad, I swear. No, he might even be worse. I don't know. I think it's the circus in us. We were always moving around, and you had to pack light and take only what really mattered. These days all he has is a poster from the circus, a picture of his family, and a stuffed elephant.”

“An elephant?”

“Oh, no,” Clint said. “Don't you go knocking a circus boy's elephant. Zitka was the best.”

Natasha frowned. He shook his head again and went over to the box he'd been emptying. “Here. I think it's time you had this.”

She accepted the package from him. Wary, she stopped before opening it. “What is it?”

“A housewarming gift.”

She did not believe that, but she unwrapped the package anyway, opening it up to find a small but exquisitely carved replica of an elephant. She took it out and held it up for Clint to see. He grinned, and she rolled her eyes at him. He was a fool.

“I'll put that on the shelf,” Clint said, plucking it from her hand. “I'm sure there's a card in there somewhere.”

“I don't need to read your card.”

“No, you don't, but I never said that was from me,” Clint said, adjusting the elephant's placement in front of the snowglobes.

Natasha shook her head, grabbing the small note before dropping the empty box on the table. She held it up, reading the words despite the awful handwriting.

_No home is complete without an elephant._

_Nightwing_

_P.S. No hard feelings about the whole drugging you and leaving you for S.H.I.E.L.D, right?_

She smiled again, taking the card over to place it by the elephant. She stepped back and appraised it. She liked that where it was, though she did not know why.

“I take it the elephant stays?”

“Yes.”

Clint smiled. “Good. Here, this is _my_ housewarming gift.”

She tore the wrapping paper off, amused by the way he frowned at her. She had taken more time with the first one, but this one was his, and little stuff like that irritated him, so it was always worth doing. She uncovered the framed photograph and looked up at him. “What is this?”

“Your family.”

“I am not related to any of these people.”

“Not by blood, but that doesn't make them any less your family,” Clint insisted. “Coulson, May, you and me... We may not have the usual family ties, but we _have_ ties. This is us. Family. It's perfect.”

Natasha held onto the picture, a strange emotion stinging at her eyes. “Thank you, Clint.”

He shrugged. “Now you're really home, right?”

Natasha did not know what home was, but she nodded because if there was such a place, she had it now. He had helped her create it, and she owed him for that as well.


End file.
